Politics
Iran’s women bikers take the road despite legal, social obstacles
When she first started learning to ride a motorbike, Iranian Maryam Ghelich, now an instructor, would drive through Tehran’s empty streets at night to avoid scrutiny over her clothing or lack of a licence.
Fifteen years on, Ghelich has trained hundreds of women, helping them navigate not only the capital’s gridlocked streets but the barriers facing women motorcyclists in the conservative Islamic republic, with a marked surge in demand for lessons in recent months.
“This sport was one of my passions, and in Iran it had long been taken for granted that motorcycling was only for men,” she told AFP at a training centre in northern Tehran.
On streets and at intersections across Iran, women on mopeds and motorbikes wearing colourful helmets have become an increasingly common sight, signalling a subtle but noticeable shift in social attitudes over a matter of months.
“I tried to prove that women can also have successful participation in this field,” said 49-year-old Ghelich, a long-time member of Iran’s Motorcycling and Automobile Federation.
Ghelich, who is a certified instructor with the federation, explained how she had watched the change unfold in real time after spending more than a decade as one of only a handful of women riders.
“People’s perspectives in our society have really changed. It wasn’t accepted at all before,” she said, explaining there has been a sharp rise in women enrolling in her courses in recent months, whether for city riding or for racing.
“When I see the women we trained out riding on the streets, I really enjoy seeing that families are now accepting it,” she added.
Licensing issue
Despite the progress, motorbike and scooter licensing for women remains a major hurdle in Iran and a legally grey area.
While traffic laws do not explicitly ban women from riding, authorities have never issued motorcycle licences to them in practice, with the issue gaining urgency with the noticeable rise in women riding.
Niloufar, a 43-year-old fashion designer who asked only to be identified by her first name and who recently joined Ghelich’s city-riding course, said the lack of licences is of serious concern.
“Even if a woman rides very professionally, without a licence she will legally be blamed if she has an accident, even if she’s the victim,” she said.
Publicly, authorities have maintained that women can ride motorcycles. Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said there is “no legal prohibition”.
And in September, the head of Iran’s traffic police, Teymour Hosseini, said his officers did not have authorisation to give their own interpretation to the law on religious or any other grounds.
“The police enforce the law… whatever is issued, we are obliged to implement,” he added.
But others have continued to refer to the Islamic republic’s dress code, in place since shortly after the 1979 revolution and requiring women to wear loose clothing and cover their head and neck, as a block to women riding motorcycles.
“Some ride motorcycles with no hijab, improper hijab, or poor covering… such behaviour is against Sharia law,” said Abdolhossein Khosropanah of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, a state body overseeing Islamic cultural and educational policy.
Ultraconservative lawmaker Mohammed Seraj has argued: “Women riding motorcycles is improper and not compatible with the society’s culture.”
‘No reason to object’
Ghelich said clothing restrictions have long posed challenges for women riders.
She recalled races years ago when women participants were required to wear “long overalls” over their leather suits — a rule that she said “really restricted” riding.
But conditions for riding have eased over time, she said, and that even when police “seize motorcycles now, they let people go more easily, they give it back faster”.
Women in Iran have more broadly pushed against social boundaries in recent years, increasingly defying the Islamic republic’s strict rules, including the mandatory dress code.
The trend has accelerated after the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, arrested for allegedly violating hijab rules.
Mona Nasehi, a 33-year-old beauty salon owner who began riding this year, said police once attempted to stop her — possibly because she was riding alone — but she was too afraid to pull over.
“I had heard from friends that police usually don’t mistreat women riders, but we all still have that fear that they might insult us or take our bike,” she said.
Nayereh Chitsazian, 53, who bought her motorbike last week, said that while her licence is the missing piece, all her other documentation is in place.
“The police have no reason to object,” she said.
“The motorcycles are registered, insured, so there’s no reason for them to stop us.”
Some 287 candidates will be considered for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Thursday, with US President Donald Trump likely to be among the nominees.
Of this year’s nominations, 208 are individuals and 79 are organisations, said Kristian Berg Harpviken, adding that there were many new nominees compared to last year.
“Since I am new in the job, one of the things that has to some extent surprised me is how much renewal there is from year to year on the list,” Harpviken said in an interview. He has held the position since January 2025.
Despite the number of conflicts rising worldwide and international cooperation under pressure, the award remains relevant, he added.
“The Peace Prize is even more important in a period like the one we’re living in,” he said. “There is as much good work, if not more, than ever.”
Trump likely nominated, but not confirmed
The leaders of Cambodia, Israel and Pakistan have said they nominated Trump for this year’s prize. Their nominations, if made, would have been done in spring and summer 2025, and they are therefore valid given the deadline was January 31.
There is no way of verifying they have done as they have said as nominations remain secret for 50 years and Harpviken declined to say on Thursday whether Trump had been nominated.
A nomination is not an endorsement by the award body.
In addition to committee members, thousands of people worldwide can propose names: members of governments and parliaments; current heads of state; university professors of history, social sciences, law and philosophy; and former Nobel Peace Prize laureates, among others.
Many names appear on betting sites giving odds on this year’s possible laureates, from Russia’s Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, to Pope Leo and Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, a volunteer aid group, among others.
Concern for health of jailed Iranian laureate
Harpviken said the committee was deeply concerned about the health of the 2023 Peace Prize laureate, Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, which is worsening after she suffered a heart attack in prison.
Her supporters said on Wednesday her life was in imminent danger.
“Her sister was able to visit her in prison yesterday and the reports coming out after that are actually quite alarming as to her health condition,” said Harpviken.
“We see there is a lot of international pressure now. So we hope that the Iranian authorities do pay attention to that and release her so that she can have proper medical treatment.”
Who else could be nominated?
Among possible nominees for this year’s prize are Lisa Murkowski, the US senator for Alaska, and Aaja Chemnitz, a member of the Danish parliament elected from Greenland, according to the Norwegian lawmaker who nominated them both.
“Together they have worked relentlessly to build trust and to secure a peaceful development of the Arctic region over many years,” said the lawmaker, Lars Haltbrekken.
Greenland has been in particular focus this year due to Trump’s relentless push to acquire the island from Nato ally Denmark.
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on October 9, while the ceremony will take place on December 10.
A US federal jury convicted an Afghan man on Wednesday of providing support to the Daesh in Afghanistan but failed to agree on whether he was involved in the deadly 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul airport.
Mohammad Sharifullah, a member of the Daesh-Khorasan, was convicted in Virginia of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organisation.
President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress last year, had described Sharifullah as the “top terrorist responsible” for the Kabul airport attack that killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 American troops.
The jury found Sharifullah guilty of providing support to Daesh but deadlocked after two days of deliberations on whether he played a role in the Kabul airport suicide bombing.
According to prosecutors, Sharifullah scouted out the route to the airport where the suicide bomber later detonated his device among packed crowds trying to flee days after the Taliban seized control of Kabul.
The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to Kabul’s airport in the hopes of boarding a flight out of the country.
Sharifullah was extradited to the United States in March 2025 and put on trial in Alexandria on the outskirts of the US capital.
He faces up to 20 years in prison.
According to the US authorities, Sharifullah was involved in a number of Daesh-Khorasan attacks between 2016 and his arrest by Pakistani authorities in 2025.
They included a June 2016 suicide bombing that targeted Nepali security guards protecting the Canadian embassy in Kabul.
Sharifullah was accused of conducting surveillance and transporting the suicide bomber to the attack site.
He was also accused of giving weapons instructions to Daesh-Khorasan gunmen who attacked the Crocus City Hall near Moscow in March 2024.
- Khamenei says US faces disgraceful defeat in its plan.
- Iran to secure Gulf, eliminate “enemy’s abuses”: supreme leader.
- Iranian rial has fallen to historic lows against dollar.
Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a published written message on Thursday that a new chapter for the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz has been taking shape since the Iran war with the United States and Israel broke out on February 28.
Iran’s Supreme Leader said that Tehran would secure the Gulf region and eliminate what he described as “the enemy’s abuses of the waterway.”
The Supreme Leader added that new management of the Strait of Hormuz would bring calm, progress and economic benefits to all Gulf nations.
“Today, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression by the world’s bullies in the region, and the United States’ disgraceful defeat in its plans, a new chapter is unfolding for the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” he said, hailing Iran’s control over shipping in the strait.
Khamenei was wounded in the initial US-Israeli strikes that assassinated his father Ali Khamenei, and has not been seen in public since being named his successor as supreme leader last month.
The United States imposed a blockade on Iran’s ports two weeks ago, while the Islamic republic has maintained its stranglehold over the strategic Strait of Hormuz since the start of the Middle East war in February.
Now, a State Department official told AFP, Washington is seeking to set up an international coalition comprising allied states and shipping firms to coordinate safe passage through Hormuz — while maintaining its own blockade of ships serving Iran.
“Any attempt to impose a maritime blockade or restrictions is contrary to international law… and is doomed to fail,” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said, in a statement that warned the blockade that began on April 13 would be “a disruption to lasting stability in the Persian Gulf”.
And Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has emerged as an influential figure, said control of Hormuz would allow Tehran to “provide itself and its neighbours with the precious blessing of a future free from American presence and interference”.
‘Choking’
Trump is expected to receive a briefing on Thursday on new plans for potential military action in Iran from Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, two sources with knowledge of US planning told news site Axios.
This week Trump has reportedly told oil executives and national security officials to prepare for a long US blockade designed to force Tehran to surrender its nuclear programme.
US Central Command said on Wednesday in a social media post that it had reached a “significant milestone after successfully redirecting the 42nd commercial vessel attempting to violate the blockade”.
It said there are “41 tankers with 69 million barrels of oil that the Iranian regime can’t sell”, estimating the value at more than $6 billion.
Oil prices struck a four-year high on Thursday. International benchmark Brent crude soared more than 7% to $126 a barrel, but then eased in midday trading in London.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said the closure of Hormuz was “strangling the global economy” and International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol told a meeting at his Paris headquarters: “The world is facing the biggest energy crisis in history.”
The European Central Bank also warned that the longer the war and high energy prices continue, “the stronger is the likely impact on broader inflation and the economy.”
Trump faces domestic political pressure to end the war, which is unpopular even with much of his base, has increased costs for American consumers and has unnerved US allies.
Iran’s economy is also suffering and the rial has fallen to historic lows against the dollar.
US Fed holds interest rates unchanged between 3.5-3.75%
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